It might be a cliche, but sometimes, a picture says more than a thousand words. Over the years, I've often talked about how the technology world is iterative, about how products are virtually always built upon that which came before, about how almost always, multiple people independently arrive at the same products since they work within the same constraints of the current state of technology. This elementary aspect of the technology world, which some would rather forget, has been illustrated very, very well in one of Samsung's legal filings against Apple.

The power cable that Samsung "copied" happens to be a standard non proprietary plug. Its meant to be copied. As for design, its very simple. Phones led to the design of a touch screen front on a device. Lots of examples of this. The iPad is just a giant iphone. If Samsung was truly copying Apple, Samsung devices wouldn't lack the polish in certain places. Because its not so much the quality of the software (granted bad code leads to bugs) but the design which shows off the polish of the OS.